Some newbie questions (no nation specific)

[Aracon]

Hello everybody!

I'm a newbie player of dominions. Well in fact i bought the game some years ago, but personal reasons made me leave games to focus on university (when i'd played just a month in SP of dominions) and i've forgot everything i could learn. So i'm a newbie

I've been looking for info about some questions through boards and so, but i've found it hard to extract the specific information i could need (too much info available, it's overwhelming). So I have some questions that if somebody can give me links to the answers' page or answer them directly, it will be very appreciated

Let's go!

- There's a place when you can find all the "slang" terms? Like SC, and so. Some are "easy" i think (i figured SC = super-combatant) but others...

- I've seen there're lots of mods (or you name them at posts). Which one's are the most usually used in MP games? Where can i download them?

- Which are the most popular maps? Where can i find them if they're not on the original game (latest patch applied)

- What's the main goal of each magic school? I mean, construction allows you to build items, but some differences between other schools seem less clear to me, and i've read posts which seem to point there're some focused on damage, and so... I haven't find any doc with spell data (i have one with enchanted items and one with summons, one with magic sites and one with unit stats, but no spells), there's any?

- Which are the most popular items? I know it must depend on race choice as requirements will change, but i've read things like "clams item (forgot name)" which generates astral pearls like being used a lot. There're some "common" items everybody uses if they can, and some specific ones worth knowing about?

- About blessing: if i've understood well, having a pretender with a certain amount on a magic path allows sacred troops to earn a blessing. That's automatic (in combat they have the skill from blessing right at start) or you must cast any holy/unholy spell (kind of bless) in battle?

- I'm confused about PD (I assume its province defense from what i've read), sometimes people has claimed you need to invest 20 pd to have a commander, but manual says that 1 PD summons a commander (weaker that the 20 pd version) for your troops. Which one is right?

- Where can i find MP games for a newbie player? Not right now, but in a few weeks (when i finish adjusting my skills vs AI) i would like to be beaten in MP so i learn

- In MP people usually uses strong-expensive troops, isn't it? They focus on research (for summoning) and hard troops right from the beginning (with adaptation to circumstance, as neighbors and so) or they make an initial army full of expendable troops to begin and evolve? Because some AAR seems like they do the first choice, but i don't see how to expand fast this way.

- Last question (by now ). I know it's specific (or should be) to each nation, but i've read people usually use rainbow pretenders (lots of path of magic to find sites), or SC ones. The games i've done (SP all of them) i usually max (or near to max) 1 magic path on my pretender so i can cast most powerful spells. Is that wrong? It's better to have 2-3 paths at 4-5-6 level?


oh, I forgot: Dominions 3 forum, is just for beta testers? When it's supposed to be released?

Thanks for reading through this and answering if you can

[Agrajag]

I'll try and answer your questions, though I'm not that good of a player (mostly because I don't have enough reliable free time for the long online games that is dominions )
1) There was a thread for that once, though I have no idea how its called or where to find it.
Mostly the acronyms can be figured out easily, especially from context, and there aren't that many of them.
If you've got something specific to ask, you can just ask. (and you are right about SC)
2) Though I don't play online games, I know the most common mod online is the conceptual balance mod.
3) Dunno.
4) Generaly speaking:
Conjuration is summoning spells.
Alteration is buffs.
Evocation is damaging spells.
Construction is item forging + a bit of summoning.
Enchantment and Thaumaturgy are pretty much varied.
And Blood has lots of stuff but mainly summoning.
The easiest way IMO is to just check in-game.
5) Clams and Fever Fetishes produce magical gems, and therefore (especially with a hammer) quite easily exploitable (after X turns you completely repay your investment and being making gem profits, and en-masse you gain an infinite supply of gems. Clams especially so because they bring the versatile astral pearls, and those can also be used for chain casting Wish)
There are many other favored items, such as lucky coin, boots of quickness and jade armor, and many more.
6) To activate the blessing you need a Sacred unit, and a priest with Holy to cast Blessing on it to activate the power.
7) IIRC you get a commander for each 10 points of PD.
8) Theres a subforum for MP games, you can check there, or start your own novice games.
9) Everyone has their own strategy, but generaly speaking National units are only used at the very begining, later almost completely abandoned for summoned units (and the money used to fund as many mages as possible). Starting strats are varied, sometimes it is a good idea to go for easy to replace expendable troops and sometimes not, but are all aimed at having the best possible start in taking indies in order to prepare for war.
10) It is specific to each nation, and to each strategy.
A very high score in a single path is usually used for a strong bless rather than spells, and spreading your paths around is useful for site searching as well as being able to cast a wide variety of spells (and sometimes for an all-around bless), and SCs are useful for early expansion (as well as later expansion after a bit of equipment forging).
The rule is you should make your pretender fit your designed play strategy

[Varjostin]

As for Dominions 3:
Anybody, who is interested in the game, is welcome to the forum. It contains mostly, as you can see, speculation and some answers too about the content of Dom 3. Some people try to suggest some new features, but I think mostly in vain. Release date is supposed to be in this month, but although Illwinter working hard, it seems that the game will be delayed. Maybe in August. Please.

Oh. You might also want to check out the progress diary of Dom 3 in the page one of the thread "Dominions 3 development news" in the Dom 3 forum.

[Aracon]

Thanks for answers

Any place where I can find spell's compendium? I mean with better description than manual.

[Endoperez]

The descriptions from the manual are about the only source of information. The numbers before it also tell quite a lot, e.g. Blade Wind (Evoc. 4) has damage 14, but 52+ effects. That means that Blade Wind shoots 52 effects(blades), every one of which deals 14 points of damage. The + after the 52 tells that more powerful Earth mages fire even more blades.

If you want to find spells that fit spesific roles, use Darryl's Grimorie: http://www.sangster.org/dominions/grimorie.php

Good items can be divided into few groups:
- items that greatly help an already tough unit to survive, all items granting Luck, Etherealness, lots of protection, Reinvigoration (fatique lowers on its own) etc. fit this group. Pendant of Luck, Lucky Coin (shield), Faithful (sword), Ring of Regeneration, Rainbow Armor, Charcoal Shield (Fire Shield kills most around you, so they only hit you once), Hydra Skin Armor. However, Robe of Shadows is only used if you can get protection from some other source, because it grants no protection against magical attacks and takes the Body slot, disallowing armor. Lycanthropos' Amulet is good, but has some side-effects.

- weapons that drain life, because they both heal and reinvigorate their user: Wraith Sword, Blood Thorn.

- items that generate gems: Clam of Pearls, Fever Fetish, sometimes Blood Stone

- items that grant Forge Bonus: mainly Dwarven Hammer

- items that grant quickness: Boots of Quickness for mages, Jade Armor for undead and/or thugs/SCs. Thugs are weak super-combatants, e.g. a Bane Lord (Conj. 5?) with Wraith Sword, Boots of Quickness and Pendant of Luck.

- items that boost magical paths: Earth Boots (E2), Thistle Mace (N2), Treelord's Staff (N4), Moonvine Bracelet (N3S1, boost Nature but not aStral), Winged Helmet (A3), Bag of Winds (A3), Robe of the Sea (W3), Water Bracelet (W1), Flame Helmet (F3), Skull of Fire (D1F1, boosts fire), Skull Staff (D2), Skullface (D3), Ring of Sorcery (aStral 4, boost S,N,D,B), Ring of Wizardry (S5, boosts everything), Blood Thorn (B3, it's a dagger, not misc item), Brazen Vessel (B3), Armor of Twisting Thorns (B3N2, boost N and B but can't be removed), Armor of Souls (B4), Blood Stone (B3E1, boost Blood), Robe of the Magi (B4A1, boost all AND gives reinvigoration but gives Horror Mark), and Staves of Elemental Masteries (F3W3 OR E3A3, both boost all of FEWS).

[Vicious Love]

Aracon said:
- There's a place when you can find all the "slang" terms? Like SC, and so. Some are "easy" i think (i figured SC = super-combatant) but others...

If you can't find the original slang thread, or if it's out of date by now, why not just ask for a few particular terms in this thread?

- I've seen there're lots of mods (or you name them at posts). Which one's are the most usually used in MP games? Where can i download them?

- Which are the most popular maps? Where can i find them if they're not on the original game (latest patch applied)

The Conceptual Balance mod is pretty much the only one regularly used in MP. There should be a thread for it, including download link, on this forum. As for maps, try both the forum and Illwinter's official site.

- Which are the most popular items? I know it must depend on race choice as requirements will change, but i've read things like "clams item (forgot name)" which generates astral pearls like being used a lot. There're some "common" items everybody uses if they can, and some specific ones worth knowing about?

I'm pretty sure there've been several threads about this. It's a bit of a tangled issue, at present; all of the items which were considered overpowered were substantially nerfed in the Conceptual Balance mod. Since the mod is about as popular as the base game, if not more so, any discussion of items is actually a discussion of two very different sets of items.

In the base game, you can seldom go wrong with gem-generating and unit-summoning items, specifically Clams of Pearls, Fever Fetishes(put 'em on cheap undead commanders of recuperating and regenerating troops) and Soul Contracts(put them on scouts, and expect to lose one occasionally to a Horror attack).

All of these (particularly the Soul Contract) are mad esubstantially more lucrative by Dwarven Hammers or, if you've reached Construction 8, the Hammer of the Forge Lord.

Absolutely everything else is nation-, opponent-, or SC-specific.

- I'm confused about PD (I assume its province defense from what i've read), sometimes people has claimed you need to invest 20 pd to have a commander, but manual says that 1 PD summons a commander (weaker that the 20 pd version) for your troops. Which one is right?

One commander with the first point of PD, another with either the 10th, 11th, 20th, or 21st. I forget which. Should be easy enough to test, anyway.

- In MP people usually uses strong-expensive troops, isn't it? They focus on research (for summoning) and hard troops right from the beginning (with adaptation to circumstance, as neighbors and so) or they make an initial army full of expendable troops to begin and evolve? Because some AAR seems like they do the first choice, but i don't see how to expand fast this way.

Some nations are better-equipped to expand with national troops than others. Also, the strength of independents varies from game to game. There's really no conclusive answer to this. However, you seem to have overlooked the possibility of using your Pretender for expansion in the very early game.

- Last question (by now ). I know it's specific (or should be) to each nation, but i've read people usually use rainbow pretenders (lots of path of magic to find sites), or SC ones. The games i've done (SP all of them) i usually max (or near to max) 1 magic path on my pretender so i can cast most powerful spells. Is that wrong? It's better to have 2-3 paths at 4-5-6 level?

Plenty of players use Pretenders with one (or even two) paths at level 9, generally because they're interested in the blessing this grants their sacred troops. As far as casting globals and forging items and artifacts goes, it's sufficient to have enough of a particular path to get one's god up to the requisite level using items (like Water Bracelets, Skulls of Flame, Starshine Skullcaps, Rings of Wizardry, etc).

Not that there aren't advantages to having a base rating of 9 or so, and boosting it yet further with magic items. A Pretender with a Rune Smasher, Spell Focus, and 15 death is just that much more effective when casting Undead Mastery, for instance. Still, most players (myself usually among them) don't consider it worth the cost.

As far as rainbow pretenders go, a level of 4 in a path is enough to find any and all sites of that path in a province, and a level of 3 will still find the vast majority (though not the rarest and most powerful ones.

oh, I forgot: Dominions 3 forum, is just for beta testers? When it's supposed to be released?

No, and soon.

Thanks for reading through this and answering if you can

Glad to be of assistance.

[Ironhawk]

Couple of additions to Agrajag's post:

1) Here is the abbreviations post

2) Yep, Conceptual Balance Mod (CB) is the most common.

3) I believe Nile is pretty popular for duels. Otherwise there isnt a common one that I know of. Aran maybe since its kind of default?

5) Gem generators (clams, fetishes, etc) are good, but it should be noted that they are not as good as in CB. Probably the most popular item would be the Dwarven Hammer which gives you a forge bonus. Also, pay close attention to all the "booster items" (items which increase the wielders power in a magic path).

8) Newbie games do start in the MP forums occassionally. You can also see if someone will host one for you and then just advertise your own game in a post.

10) If you are just casting a particular spell or spells, its probably not neccessary to max out a magical path. Maxing your magic paths (going to 9-10) is usually reserved for Bless Strategies as each additional pick of magic gets more and more expensive. If you were to take like 5-7 in a path and then use booster items to get you as high as you needed, that would probably be a more efficient use of your design points.

[shovah]

PD commanders, you get your first commander at 1 pd and your second (and final iirc) at 20pd. Just remember some pd is far weaker than others (machaka and mictlan have it bad whereas ulm, abysia, jotunheim and atlantis if the right spells are researched have it easy.
if you need any help or would like a test game vrs me (i can set up a server for us to have a blitz or i could do a pbem) just email * Email link removed as requested by the owner
the people here have basically covered all of your other questions.

[PashaDawg]

I love 1x1 and 1x1x1 games. There are some good maps for that.

The classic is Clash of Titans, which is available on the Illwinter map page.

Wish_for_blood_slaves has made two good maps, too: Siltrock and Forgotten Cliffs. They are also good single-player practice maps. They are available on the map portion of this forum.

Pasha

[Saxon]

I remember reading that 11 and 21 were key cut off points for PD. At 11 you can catch spies/scouts sometimes and at 21 the chances are quite a bit better. I also thought that 21 was where you got the extra commander, not 20, but I could be wrong.

However, look at the cost of PD over 11 carefully, as you do not get good value for your money on a per unit basis. If your PD is 14, you pay 15 gold for the next step. Getting another cheap unit that is stuck in the province may not be the best use of your money. Like everything else in the game, you have to balance things.

Your question about the best item is not easy to answer, as it all depends on what you want to do! Think of them as tools and then figure out what you want the tool to do. I know this sounds like an answer from a yogi, but it is true.